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explained what was going on as they went.
    ‘The look-outs on Middle Tower heard
     shouting outside the castle about an hour ago. It was quite far away and they
     couldn’t tell what was going on.’
    ‘Kids shouting?’
    ‘You ever hear a zombie
     shout?’
    ‘Guess not.’
    ‘It was definitely kids,’ Kyle
     went on. ‘I was on early watch so they sent for me.’
    ‘They stayed put?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Nobody was allowed out of the castle unless
     authorized by Jordan or one of his captains.
    ‘So have you seen anything?’ Ed
     asked. They had come to Byward Tower. The gatekeeper hauled the gates open to let them
     through and they ran across the causeway to Middle Tower. In the last few days the
     Sappers had made good progress in the moat; there were only a couple of centimetres of
     standing water left and in some places patches of muddy ground showed through.
    ‘We searched the whole area with our
     bins,’ said Kyle, struggling to keep up with Ed. ‘At first we couldn’t
     see nothing then Macca spotted someone.’
    ‘A kid?’
    ‘Far as we could tell.’
    ‘Just one?’
    ‘Just one
kid
. A whole mess of
     sickos, though. The kid was running from a gang of them.’
    They had arrived at Middle Tower where they
     clattered up the spiral stairs to the roof. Four kids were waiting for them. Ed took a
     pair of binoculars off one of them.
    ‘What direction?’ he asked,
     putting the glasses to his face. ‘Where did they come from?’
    ‘No-go zone,’ said the boy,
     Macca, who had given Ed the binoculars.
    Ed swore.
    ‘Since then they’ve moved
     northwards, up by Trinity House.’ Macca had a screwed-up face and was always
     mucking about, but he had good eyes.
    Ed switched direction, swinging the glasses
     round to the right, up past the ticket offices to the main road that ran along the north
     side of the Tower. They weren’t in the best position to see what was going on up
     that way and, despite scouring the area for a couple of minutes, he could see nothing.
     He could
hear
something, though. A voice calling out, thin and high-pitched. A
     girl by the sound of it or a very young boy.
    ‘They shouting for help?’ he
     asked. The look-outs looked blank, apart from a tall, athletic girl called Hayden.
    ‘Could be,’ she said.
     ‘It’s what I’d be shouting.’
    ‘OK,’ said Ed.
     ‘We’re going to have to find out.’
    There were groans from the other, all except
     for Kyle, who smiled and nodded his head, running his fingers along the blade of his new
     battleaxe. He was always up for a fight.
    Ed stared the complaining kids down.
     ‘Macca, you come with us,’ he said. ‘And you, Hayden. Kate, you stay
     up here.Use these.’ He slapped the binoculars into her hands
     then turned to the last of the look-outs. ‘Carly, you go round to Devereux Tower.
     There’s a better view from there. Scare up some help on the way. Keep watch from
     there, OK?’
    ‘OK.’ Carly grinned as she
     hurried off, evidently relieved that she wasn’t going to have to go out on to the
     streets. Ed leant over the wall to shout down to her as she crossed the causeway.
     ‘And tell Jordan what’s happening!’
    Ed now surveyed his war party: Kyle, Macca,
     Hayden, plus the four card players he’d dragged out of the Bloody Tower.
     He’d picked them just because they looked like they weren’t doing anything,
     but he realized they’d make a good team.
    Adele was a tough, chunky girl who could win
     a fight with almost any boy. It always amused Ed that Adele, as well as being one of his
     best fighters, was also one of the girliest girls in the Tower. Her hair was always full
     of sparkly hairclips and pins and she didn’t bother with armour or protective
     leather, preferring layers of bright colours and pretty patterns, beads and badges and
     bangles. To see her charging into a fight, all in pink and swinging her club like a
     baseball batter, was really something. She was very popular with the